Brian Gardner has been making themes, branded Revolution, for several different applications.  One of them being a slick new theme he calls the Revolution Real Estate Theme.
The really cool thing about this theme is the way it allows a realtor to list houses that they have listed for sale in an attractive and organized manner.  Along with the ability to list houses, the realtor can post blog posts along side the listings to add more value to the web site.

By using WordPress along with the Revolution Real Estate Theme and posting informational blog posts along side that content, the realtor is actually improving their search engine rankings also.

The layout of the theme is excellent and allows for a simple web user to start up the web site.  Also, a more experienced web developer could easily add more functionality by expanding the photo gallery capabilities and even adding video presentations.

You can check the theme out by visiting this site.

Revolution Real Estate Theme

Wow! WordPress Themes are everywhere.  Do a search, you will have no trouble at all finding themes available for you to use.  The thing is, which one?

There are literally thousands of themes available, and most of them are free. Free to the point that the creators rarely even ask for a couple bucks for their work.  Often times you are asked to keep the credits intact.  The credits include a link to the authors web page, which gives the creator more "link juice" for SEO reasons.

Most free themes are pretty basic, 1 column, 2 column, 3 column, widget ready or not and etc.  The colors are mixed up and header and background images look different, other than that most of the free themes are basic.

With a free theme normally you need to do a lot of modifying with the graphics, css layouts, widgets, and installation and customization of plugins.

This is all fine for someone who knows how to turn a free theme into a fine tuned pimped out self-customized theme, which can be very rewarding.  But for someone who wants to make a splash and create a large and in charge presence on the web, without the knowledge to customize a theme, a premium theme is your answer.

For example, check out the Revolution Theme site.  While it might not be immediately evident without installing the theme and seeing all the extra tabs in WordPress that it gives you for easy WSIWYG editing, but that is why paying a few bucks for the theme is worth it.  It saves you hours of time, more like days and weeks, believe me.

I know that after looking at another premium theme like Omni, that the depth and complication of the layout on the demo pages looks like a designers headache.  The thing is, with some extra work at properly coding a theme, the options in your WordPress admin appear and make it easy as click here and type here.

There are many more reasons that if you are serious about publishing a web site using WordPress for the back end that it make sense to get a hold of a theme that someone has really put a lot of work into to make your life better and easier, but I will point those out in another post.

The Best WordPress Plug-ins

SEO Your WordPress Blog

How to Put Adsense on your WordPress Blog

How To Create A Custom WordPress Page Template

How To Tweak or Edit Your WordPress Theme

Quick & Easy Method to Customize a WordPress Theme

Make Your Wordpress Blog Search Engine Friendly

WordPress.com - Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Blog

The benefit that I see to having a book or magazine laying around the house is that you do not necessarily need to be glued to your monitor while doing research and learning. This helps you think a little more in depth about the material you reading. Also, you can even take a book with you on a train, bus, plane and even have it next to your toilette.

After some research, here is what I found to be available. Most of these books and magazines are easily found on Amazon.

1 - ProBlogger by Darren Rowse

I have been reading ProBlogger.net for a long time now. Now that he has written this book, I cannot wait to read it. I would guess that this book has to be a must read for any blog writer that wishes to get some exposure.

ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income: Darren Rowse, Chris Garrett: Books

2 - WordPress for Dummies

Ok, yah, I know. Whenever I own a Dummies book, I make sure it is hidden from the public eye, I know the feeling. I have read some bad Dummies books but they do seem to be getting better. I would say that if you are a newbie, and have no clue what it takes to set up WordPress, scan the book for 10 minutes, and throw it away.

WordPress For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)): Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Matt Mullenweg: Books

3 - Blogging Heros

I read quite a bit of this book a little bit ago then lent it to a friend and never got it back. This book is full of great stuff, the kind you can really chew on.

Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers: Michael A. Banks: Books

4- WordPress Complete

This is the kind of book you buy when interested in really getting to know WordPress. Or even good when you get into a coding jam and your eyes can no longer focus on your monitor. Here is a review of the book - Fadtastic

WordPress Complete: set up, customize, and market your blog: Hasin Hayder: Books

5 - WordPress: Visual Quick Start Guide

I like these books a lot. They seem to be relatively inexpensive and are really valuable when you just need a glossary or packed table of contents to find something. This version of the book doesn’t ship until August, they do have an older version, but I would be hesitant to buy it because of how fast WordPress changes.

WordPress: Visual QuickStart Guide, 2/e: Peachpit Press: Books

-Thanks for reading!